Paradox details Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations

Last week, we heard from Paradox Con that Europa Universalis IV would be getting a second expansion, titled Wealth of Nations. Welp, now we have actual details.

As you might expect from the name, Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations will be focusing on getting your nation to Alpha Centauri… no, it won’t. It’s focused primarily on trade, which looks to be a lot less boring than “focused primarily on trade” sounds. You can provoke trade conflicts in secret, hire pirates and privateers to steal goods from other nations, establish the East India Company, designate a port as your trade capital, establish inland trade routes, etc.

Of course, most of these have a degree of risk. Hiring privateers to cripple enemy trade is one thing, but if you get caught doing so, then you’ve just provided a rather fat casus belli and are almost certainly going to end up at war. You can secretly set up trade conflicts to try to screw up the income of other nations, but it might well backfire. On the plus side, all of this gives a militarily weak nation plenty of opportunity to screw with the balance of power…

Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations is due out sometime in the second quarter of this year.